Garrity Insights

The New Mexico Legislative session came to a close on March 21, 2015 and the #NMLEG hashtag (the official hashtag for the New Mexico Legislative Session) has reached more than 138 million timeline deliveries over the 60 days. From January 20, the beginning of the session, through March 21, the end of the session, Twitter has seen the #NMLEG hashtag populated by 4,620 contributors in 44,604 tweets, reaching 8,061,124 individuals. The data is pulled from The Garrity Group’s Hashtracking account. The online conversations ranged from education, health, poverty, the economy, to labor and right-to-work laws and reform.

A survey commissioned by The Garrity Group Public Relations shows that 42 percent of New Mexico residents feel the State’s economy will be “stronger” two years from now. In contrast, 35 percent of residents feel it will be “about the same” and 16 percent believe the economy will be weaker two years from now; 8 percent of residents are undecided.

Since 2011, out of state corporations have seen tremendous swings in favorability among those involved in the state’s political system. Among New Mexico residents there has been little change since 2011 (increase of 1 percent).

The favorability of small business is relatively unchanged among New Mexico residents, down 1 percent since 2011. Independent voters are the most favorable of small business, followed by Democrats. Republicans were least favorable toward small business in 2014.

New Mexico politicos and residents read, listen and watch what journalists create every day. But it doesn’t mean they trust what journalists are reporting. Since 2011, New Mexico residents’ trust in journalists has declined 5 percent.

The advertising industry is like the legal profession in that both are sometimes the brunt of jokes. But businesses and elected leaders need both professions, in some form, to be successful. Since 2011, New Mexico residents’ trust in advertising executives has declined 4 percent.